The Witness

by Grace Livingston Hill

All around that block there were model tenements, with thousands of windows; and light and air and cheerfulness. There were flowers in little beds between the curbing and the pavement, that the children could water and cultivate and pick. There was a fountain of filtered water in the center of the green, and a drinking-fountain at each corner of the block, but there wasn't a saloon in sight!

I looked around to my right, and the old stone house with its grimy face that belonged there had changed into a beautiful home with vines and flowers. There were windows everywhere jutting out with delightful unexpectedness, and just lovely green grass and more trees all the way to the corner! On the left, the old foundry had been cleansed and transformed, and had become a hospital belonging to the church. I couldn't help thinking right then and there what a grand doctor Tennelly would have made if he only hadn't been an aristocrat. The hospital was all white, and there was an ambulance belonging to it, and nurses who worked not only for money, but for the love of Christ. There wasn't a doctor in it who didn't know what the Presence of God meant, or couldn't point the way to be saved to a dying sinner.

Back of the church block, in place of the old shackly factories, there was one great model factory with the best modern equipment, and the eight-hour system in full swing. No little children working for a scanty living! No tired girls and women standing all day long! No foreman that did not have a love for humanity in his soul and some kind of an idea what it was to have the Presence of the living God in a factory!

I went back to the big stone house and discovered there was a great big living-room with a grand piano at one end, and a stone fireplace large enough for logs. A wide staircase led up to a gallery where many rooms opened off, rooms enough for every one we wanted, and a big special one for Father and Mother Marshall, winters, opening off in a suite, so that they could be to themselves when they got tired of us all. Of course, in summers they might want to go home sometimes and take us all with them; or maybe run down to the shore with us in an off year now and then. Break the news to them gently, darling, for I've set my heart on that house just as I saw it, and I hope they won't object.

There were other rooms, but they were vague, because I saw that you must have the key to them all yet, and I must wait till you come, to look into them.

Then I heard sweet sounds from the church, and, turning, I went in. Some one was playing the organ, high up in the dusky shadows of the gallery, and I knew it was you, Bonnie Rose, my darling! So I knelt in a pew and listened, with the Presence standing there between us. And as I knelt another vision came to me, a vision of the past! I remembered the days when I did not know God; when I sneered and argued and did all I could in my young and conceited way against Him. I remembered, too, the time He came to me in my illness and I began to believe; and the day I read that verse marked in Stephen's Bible, "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself." I suddenly realized that that had been made true to me. I have the witness in my own heart that Christ is the Son of God, my Saviour! That His Presence is on earth and manifest to me at many times. No seeming variance of science, no quibble of the intellect, can ever disturb this faith on which my soul rests. It is more than a conviction; it is a perfect satisfaction! I know! I may not be able to explain all mysteries, but I can never doubt again, because I know. The more I meet with modern skepticism, the more I am convinced that that is the only answer to it all: "He that doeth His will shall know of the doctrine," and that promise is fulfilled to all who have the will to believe.

All this came to me quite clearly as I knelt in the church in the sunset, while you were playing—was it "Rock of Ages"?—and a ray of the setting sun stole through the old yellow glass of the window in the organ-loft and lay on your hair like a crown, my Bonnie darling! My heart overflowed with gratitude at the great way life has opened up to me. That I, the least of His servants, should be honored by the love of this pearl of women!—

There was more of that letter, and Bonnie sat long on the stump reading and re-reading, with her face a glow of wonder and joy. But at last she got up and went to the house, bounding into the dining-room where Mother and Father Marshall were pretending to be busy about a lamp that didn't work right.

Down she sat with her letter and read it—at least as much as we have read—to the two sad old dears who were trying so hard to get ready for loneliness. But after that there was no more sadness in that house! No more tears nor wistful looks. Father whistled everywhere he went, till Mother told him he was like a boy again. Mother sang about her work whenever she was alone. For why should they be sad any more? There were good times still going in the world, and they were in them!

"Father!" whispered Mother, softly, that night, when she was supposed to be well on her way toward slumber. "Do you suppose the Lord heard us grumbling this afternoon, and sent that letter to make us ashamed of ourselves?"